Public Access Defibrillators

There seems to be more and more attention being given to training the public to use "out of hospital" defibrillators.

A recent summary in Evidence Based Nursing gave outcomes of a New England Journal of Medicine study. The result of the study was that people who had cardiac arrest outside a hospital were more likely to survive is they were given CPR, and in addition were treated with an automatic external defibrillator. A similar study was published in Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.

An article in the April issue of Critical Care states that training should be taken down to its most elemental form. It also state that the device is simple to operate - sixth-grade children have demonstrated safe and effective operation.

This form of intervention is becoming to be "the most significan intervention to improve survival in decades."